


Sophie

by holdingtorches



Category: British Actor RPF
Genre: Actor Tom, Angst, Childhood Friends, Drama, F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Cancer, Songfic, local colour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 16:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12868503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdingtorches/pseuds/holdingtorches
Summary: Tom looks back on his memories with the love of his life.





	Sophie

**Author's Note:**

> This is a songfic written to [ Sophie by Bear's Den](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gGrO3tIS_Y), which I highly suggest you listen to whilst reading this fic.

**_You were kind, ever welcoming  
_ ** **_Among the sloes of Loch Bardowie_ **

We were children then, do you remember? I had my hair that looked like a chicken's nest and you... you were beautiful even then. It was then that I truly came to know two of life's most important things. The first was peace; I first met peace on the banks of Bardowie Loch, sitting with you on the picnic blanket you had stolen from your mother's linen closet. Huddled up in our warm clothes as the first days of autumn frost began biting our ruddy cheeks, we were alone then, and for the first time in my life, I felt serenity. I looked at you with eyes of joy as I adorned your brow with a flower crown I had made with wildflowers, and you reached out to feed me with the sloes that grew on the blackthorn trees by the lake. My face scrunched up as the sourness and bitterness of the berries hit my tongue, and you laughed, trying your best to say that I was too gullible in between the fits of laughter that overcame you.

As the taste dissipated, I opened my eyes and looked at you. You were still giggling your lungs out, and in that light, with you in that crown of flowers and your thick peacoat over your best Sunday dress, I came to know the second thing: love.

You may never have an idea of how wonderful it was, my love, to know right there and then that love was real, and that love was right in front of me. You may never know how disconcerting it was for me, to know that love had found me so young, at the cusp of winter, with a girl whose laughter sounded like pearls falling down a staircase, whose smile was the brightest shade of sun I had ever seen.

With you.

 **_You can take all of your love out on me  
_ ** **_Sophie_ **

And so the holidays we spent together proved to be my halcyon days. It had always been you and I, chasing each other in the fields a stone's throw away from the ancient Roman walls a town away from your own hometown of Bearsden. I was so clumsy then; you were always such a better runner than I, and I would always stumble and fall fast behind you. Every time I'd fall, it was always you who'd help me up and tend to my wounds. It was always you who looked out for me.

That was always how you showed love to me. You never showed love in dazzling words and breathtaking acts of love. Instead, you loved through the way you cared for me, through the way you encouraged me with simple words spoken in your soft yet commanding voice. You showed love in the amazing amounts of faith you had in me, in the tremendous support that you always held out for me. I think it's safe to say that if it weren't for you, Sophie, I wouldn't be who I am today. You were there for me when I wasn't there for myself, and I dread to know who I'd be without ever meeting you.

 **_You always loved Charlie best  
_ ** **_You never knew how each night I wept_ **

The years passed, and I went up to Scotland less and less. But social media is an amazing thing, and we never really lost touch as the years found us growing older and wiser with each turn of the earth. I watched you grow in age and grace from afar, your Beauty just as bright in pictures and pixels as it was in real life.

As we grew into adulthood, I noticed you started being with Charlie more, who often tagged along with you and your group of friends. I remember how, as children, you would always whine to me about how he would pull on your pigtails when you were in primary school. We didn't know it back then, but that was the kindergarten way of flirting. Soon, your group of friends started to fade away from the pictures, until it became you and him. You and him, together. _Just_ you and him, together.

 _ <<Hello, Sophie, how have you been?>> _ I asked you through chat, on a day that I needed your positivity after a hard failure at an audition.

_ <<Oh Tom! Charlie confessed to me; he said he loved me and I... I said I'd give him a chance. We're going on a date this Saturday and I don't know what to do...>> _

Everything after that was an absolute blur. I was stunned; I couldn't even remember what I had said when you told me about your plans for Saturday. I probably said nothing, which was why you eventually wished me good night and logged off. The moment you did, I slipped into the covers of my bed and cried myself to sleep. I couldn't take it; the girl I loved was in love with someone else.

 **_But I'll feast upon the crumbs he's left  
_ ** **_Sophie_ **

The years got away, and yet, I could never forget you. I carried you in my heart even throughout the years I struggled to establish myself in the acting world. Even when I had made a name for myself and had dated various other women, I couldn't remember how to forget you. In everything I did, all I still saw was you, and I remembered how you were one of the only ones to believe in me when I said I dreamt of becoming an actor. Even though I was away, and even though you loved someone else, I still loved you, Sophie. Only ever you.

I was in New York to shoot scenes for a film I was casted in. Night was about to fall, and yet I didn't want to turn on the lights of my hotel room yet. I was tired, and my thoughts had run towards you, as they always did when I felt like everything was too much and when I wanted to give up on my dream. Suddenly, my phone started ringing, the light from the screen cutting through the darkness. I looked at it and my breath hitched in my throat; it was you, your bright smile in the photo peeking through the caller ID. Without thinking, I picked up the phone.

"Sophie?" I asked, my voice filled with worry. It had been a year since we last talked to each other then. Last I knew, you went travelling with Charlie around Europe for your fifth anniversary together as a couple.

"Tom? Tom?" you asked back, your voice thick with tears in between snivels. I was stilled into silence as worry and dread washed over me. Despite being so far away, it pained me to hear you hurting like that. The pain was almost physical, as if I was being kicked into the curb. "Tom, I'm so sorry to call you. I know you're busy but I couldn't talk to anyone else and—"

"Sophie, I'm on my way, alright? Just hold on tight, I'll be right there. Just wait for a little while longer," I replied before ending the call. Apologies were made on set, and before I knew it I was on the first flight I could get from New York into Glasgow. A bus and a train ride after landing, I had reached Bearsden, and I ran from the station to get to you. It was raining heavily then, and the rain started to seep into my woollen jumper, but it didn't matter. What mattered was you, Sophie. What mattered had always been you.

I reached your home and knocked loudly on the door, probably louder than what was appropriate. Your mother answered the door, and for a moment, she didn't look surprised that I came for you.

"Come in, lad," your mother said, inviting me in. "Would you like me to dry your jumper for you?" she offered as she looked at the state of me, dripping wet as I tried to catch my breath.

"Forgive me for turning down your kind offer, Auntie Ruth, but I'm here for Sophie. Where is she?" I asked. I hoped under my breath that I hadn't sounded impatient or rude towards your mother. She smiled a soft, sad smile and looked up towards your room. I took the steps in the stairs by twos, rushing to open the door to your room.

What I saw when I opened the door is a sight that will haunt me for as long as I live. I saw you huddled on the floor, sitting against the edge of your bed. Your held your knees close to your chest, with your head buried in your arms. I closed your door behind me and whispered your name. You looked up, and the sight of you knocked the wind out of my lungs. Your face was gaunt, with dark circles surrounding your eyes that were still puffy from crying. The roses in your cheeks were gone, the smile that had always curved your lips was gone, the light in your eyes was gone. All that was left in front of me was skin and bones, a husk of the girl I had loved since we were children.

"Oh Tom. Look at you, you're drenched," you said as you stood up, your voice shaking. You walked across the room to take an oversized jumper from your closet, probably because it was the only one that fit me. You approached me, and, probably not thinking about it, reached for the hem of my wet jumper to take it off, the same way you used to as you helped me dress when we were much younger and much more innocent. You peeled my jumper off, and your eyes widened slightly when you saw that there was nothing underneath it. In a different context, maybe, there was a sexual connotation to it, but in the state you were in, I couldn't bring myself to think that way. Never had I ever seen you look as fragile as you did then, and it brought me sorrow to see you go through so much suffering you didn't deserve.

You set my jumper aside and started to unfold the one you brought out. I whispered your name again, and told you that you didn't have to do it for me. I told you that I was there for you, and not the other way around. You buried your head into your hands, weeping anew as the new jumper landed on the floor. Barely thinking, I held you close to me, my half-nakedness forgotten as your hot tears traced their way through your cold cheeks.

You spent the night crying in my arms. In between sobs, you told me you had caught him cheating on you with another woman, right in the middle of the bed you shared with him. You wept as you asked if you weren't enough, and I told you that you were enough. You were more than enough. I told you that if I was yours, I wouldn't ask for anything else.

You leaned into me and thanked me for being there, for being your most reliable and best friend.

I didn't want to be your best friend, Sophie, I wanted to be more than that. But having you that way was heaven compared to not having you at all.

 **_And I can't forgive myself  
_ ** **_No, I can't forgive myself_ **

I couldn't bring myself to leave you then, Sophie. Your mother didn’t seem to want me to leave either, and so I stayed with you, in your home. I spent the rest of the week with you, walking through your roads and going to the places we always used to go to: the mysterious faces of Auld Wives’ Lifts, that portion of the Antonine Wall by the foregone bath house, the fossils by the rocks near the mill in Milngavie, and, where I first knew that I loved you, by the banks of Bardowie Loch, tricking each other with the sloes that grew along them, as if we were children again. Each moment I shared with you, I couldn’t help but think that that was how it was meant to be, that there was where we were supposed to be.

Through it all, I endeavoured to remind you of the love I learned through you: a love that is equal and yet has no measure, a love that does not maim nor ruin, a love that does not bring sadness, does not answer for losses, and does not percolate itself in or toy with power; rather, a love that calmly flows with genuine appreciation. A love that lasts until Love’s end.

However, I wasn’t to be given that eternity. Work started to catch up to me, and we both knew that I had to leave. I only wished that I hadn’t gone so soon.

"People are looking for you, Tom. You can't imagine how many apologies I’ve had to make for you. I understand that whatever it is, it’s important enough for you to leave your work unfinished like this. We may not know why you’re not around right now, but I want to remind you that it’s not just about you. A lot of people are counting on you right now, Tom," my manager said sternly over the phone.

"I know, Christian, and I’m so sorry. Just give me a little bit more time. My business here isn't finished yet. I’ll be back in three days’ time.”

I turned around, only to find you staring at me. I whispered a quick ‘Goodbye’ into the call before hanging up. I smiled as I approached you, trying my best to pretend that you didn't hear any of it.

"You don't have to stay here for me, Tom,"

"But Sophie, what about you?"

"I'll be fine right here, Tom. I'll be more than alright," you assured me, leaning deeper into the hug.

At that moment, I swear I didn't want to leave. Just to stay longer in your arms, I would've done anything. I would have even quit my job right there and then just to stay in your universe. What would have happened if I did, Sophie? I probably would have become a professor, or an English teacher. I would have been making less than what I do now, but I would've been everything I had ever wanted to be: with you.

As if reading my mind, you turned to me, smiling as you did so. “You’re living the dream you’ve dreamt of since we were young, Tom. Don’t let that go to waste because of me. Please. Stop running from your job. For me.”

I looked into your eyes, and saw that you meant well. Sighing deeply, I knew I could never deny you, even if it meant not being with you.

 ******_You would hide yourself in a shroud_**  
**_As your hair started falling out_**  
**_When you took off your dressing gown_**  
**_Sophie_**

On my last day in your town, you asked me if you could go with you to St. Kentigern’s, the cemetery where your nan was buried. Flowers in your hand, you walked by my side towards her grave. You set the flowers by the foot of her gravestone before we stood in silence in front of her grave. The wind whistled between us, like an ill-timed wingman trying to set the mood.

“Has your experience with Charlie changed what you think of love, Sophie?” I asked you

“No, Tom,” you replied in a sigh. “I know that the most sensible thing to be right now is bitter. But I won’t let this define me. I won’t close myself up to the prospect of love. After all, we can’t _not_ love even if we have everything. We may be the most fortunate, the most intelligent, the most powerful, and may not have dreams that cannot be taken or reached for; but if we don’t choose to love, what will become of us? To love with our own hearts, to love another more than ourselves: that is what it is to be alive. To love is to live, simply because love is life in itself.”

I looked at you as you said that, your gaze straight on as you ruminated on your words. Thinking about that moment, even now I couldn’t help but feel that all your wisdom makes me feel like I don’t deserve to be free from you.

“What happens if I die, Tom?” you asked, breaking the silence. I was taken aback by how sudden your question was, and how abruptly it switched our conversation.

“You’re not going to die, Sophie,” I answered, a small bit of anger bubbling at the surface of my tone as I was offended that you’d even think that. Hearing the anger in my voice, I stopped for a moment to try and soften my tone again; the only reason I was angry at you wasn’t you, but my idealistic desires. “People like you live long and happy lives. You’re going to age with grace, in a big home, surrounded by loving children, a loving husband…,” Surrounded, I prayed, by me.

You lips turned up into a soft smile. “You’re right, Tom,” you eventually said, turning to face me. “We’re young. We should live more.” Your smile became a full blown grin that gave me a grin of my own as we walked back to your car to drive me off to the station.

We stood on the platform, waiting as my train arrived. Nobody else was there, except the trainmaster who was back in his tiny office, door closed shut as he had his tea. I figured, then, that the moment was perfect. Perfect enough to tell you that I loved you, right there and then, in that quaint station.

Drawing courage from a deep breath, I opened my mouth to speak. “Sophie, I― ”

“Mmmhm?” you replied, turning to face me.

For the first time in years, since I started out in theatre, I felt stage fright. With your eyes intent on me as I began to confess, I froze. I was overcome with unexplainable fear, and a nagging rationality that said that it was too soon for me to tell you this, despite your answer to the question I asked you in the cemetery. My lips parted as I tried to do what has courageous, to do what I had to despite the fear. But the fear that sought to protect me betrayed me, stealing my voice. All my words fell like empires, leaving me with nothing to say.

The train roared in, its gleaming sides stopping in front of us. At that moment, I knew it was too late to tell you everything that was in my heart.

“I… I want you to take care,” I said, smiling.

“I will, Tom. I will,” you said.

“And I want you to know that I’ll always be there for you. Only say the word, and I’ll be by your side.”

“I know Tom, I know,” you assured me, leaning in for a hug. As I pulled away from your warm embrace, I took your hand in mine and kissed the back of it. I boarded the train after that, my last sight of you blushing red.

With a heart so heavy that I left it with you in Bearsden, the train pulled away from the station, moving me farther and farther from you.

I didn’t know it then, but that day was the omen I couldn’t bear to read. Days lost themselves into years, and you began to slip away from social media until you didn’t post anymore.

I was having breakfast back home in London when I saw your mother’s post, the post that changed my life as I knew it.

_It is with great sorrow that I inform you all that my beloved Sophie passed away last night after her long battle with leukaemia. I am relieved that her passing was peaceful and painless. A requiem mass will be held in her honour in two days’ time at St Agnes’s Church, Balmore Road, Bearsden at 15:00 in the afternoon, followed by her interment at St Kentigern’s Cemetery._

I dropped my mug of tea as I read the post. The sound of ceramic shattering was a weak din in my ears as my whole world seemed to fall apart as well. It felt surreal, as if it was something false that just sat there playing with pixels on my phone. But my screen was cut off into a number calling. It was your mother, and I answered as quickly as I saw her.

“Thomas…” she whispered. “Sophie, she…”

“I know, Auntie, I know. I’m on my way.”

I didn’t know when I started running towards you. It felt like I’ve been running for you all my life. But everything was hazy as I rushed to get to you. All I could remember was that I had to.

**_Your mother was dressed in black  
With a lock of your hair in her hands_ **

I arrived too early to St. Agnes’s, the old church that had always been the setting of my biggest dream. I used to dream of looking at your radiance as I stood in front of the altar. I used to envision masses of roses lining the way for you, as your and my families watched on with joy. I used to close my eyes and see you, in a white gown, beautiful as ever as you walked towards me, each step bringing you closer to a life you would spend the rest of with me. I used to practice unwritten vows in my head at night, vows that I would make in front of the people, in front of the world, and in front of God. In my reveries, you would speak promises as well, before we gave each other rings. I used to think about becoming the happiest man in the world as you made me yours with a kiss. Yes, Sophie; I had always dreamt of marrying you in that church.

Now, dreams do become reality sometimes, but that day was not one of those times. This time, I wasn't on the other end of the aisle; it was I who was walking up to you as you waited in front of the altar, in a mahogany casket, resting upon a dais. Our families were both there, but there was no joy to be felt on that day. The flowers that were there weren't red roses; they were white lilies. There weren't to be any vows, or rings, or kisses. More significantly, there was no more life to be shared with me.

I sat down by the front pew, looking on to you. Even when I was seated there, I still couldn't believe what became of you. The irrational side of me had thought of you rising from the casket, looking rosy and happy as ever, never having really died but instead only sleeping, like a redeemed Romeo and Juliet. But no matter how long I looked, nothing changed. It was still you, and I, separated by the space between the kingdom of heaven and the finite earth.

Your mother came to sit beside me, her small hand wrapping around my large one as she spent the first moments in silent commiseration. In the other was a lock of your hair in a braid, tied by a red ribbon. She smoothed her thumb over it, as if it helped her say what she had wanted to say.

“When you came for her that time, Tom, that time you ran to our home in the rain, she… she… she had been diagnosed with stage four leukaemia two weeks prior to that,” she said matter of factly. I turned my head to her in slight surprise; I hadn't known that you had kept it hidden from me for that long. “You know of how she caught Charlie cheating on her with some other woman, but what I abhor is that Charlie had the nerve to break it off saying that he wouldn't know what he'd do if he were to lose her, that he couldn't bear it when she would… And to think he used the word when, as if he was counting on it, as if cancer was the absolute certainty as to how she'd leave us.”

“Selfish wanker,” I whispered, still in shock more than anything else.

Your mother let out a short laugh that sounded more like a sigh. For a moment there was silence, the muted light raking through the surface of your casket.

“Would you like to walk with me to her, Auntie Ruth?” I whispered. I turned to look at your mother, and she looked at me so kindly, as if she knew that I didn't have the courage to do so on my own. I let her link her arm around mine as I stood up, and we walked on over to you together. Trepidation mingled with sorrow possessed me as I reached out to touch the glass that covered you. Even then you were beautiful, but never as beautiful as you were when you were living. The blush on your cheeks was too harsh to be real, the flush of your skin long lost under the surface. I became so suddenly still as reality began to permeate through my doubt. What a funny thing, you'd always say, I'd never believe until I had seen, exactly like a Doubting Thomas. But seeing you laid out like that made your believer into a griever.

"Sophie didn't want you to know, Tom. She didn't want to bother you..." your mother said, trailing off. Your will echoed in her words tread heavy on me. Bother me? How could I not care for you, Sophie? When you love someone, you can't help but be concerned. I couldn't bring myself to not be concerned for you; to do so would have been to shield myself from your radiance, from your kindness, from your sweet soul. You were never a bother to me, Sophie. Looking out for you was never an assiduous thing because I had always been enraptured by you. It's never difficult to look towards Beauty, towards Goodness… towards you.

Your brother put his arm around your mother, telling us that the requiem mass was about to begin as they started to close your casket. I went back to the pews to sit with your mother again, and throughout the hymns, the prayers, the readings, all I could think of was how you hid what ailed you for so long from me. All that ran through my mind was how it was so like you to hide your pain from others and how I should have known you better than to let you hide yourself away for so long.

**_And I knew there was no turning back  
For me_ **

When the mass ended, our families followed you as you moved forward in a horse-drawn hearse. Walking behind you, we passed by the places we used to always go to when we were younger: fields we used to run around in before the owners would shoo us away, the newsagent’s where we’d spend what little pocket money we had on sweets, the bridge we’d sit under with choc ices in hand in the blazing summers of our youth.

We arrived at the cemetery, the same cemetery you and I spent our last day in together while you were still living. I took the post of one of the pallbearers as we walked your casket towards the grave. I knew that the townspeople would talk for months on end because of that, but to me, it didn’t matter anymore. At that moment, with the shared weight of your casket resting on my shoulders, I knew that it would be the last time I would feel your weight on me. There was no time left to rewind the sun that brought the days and took the nights I had with you, no time to see your bright smile again or hear your sparkling laughter.

Prayers were said as you were lowered into the soil before we each took a handful of earth and dropped it down your grave. As I resigned you to the earth, I resigned all the dreams I ever had of you: late nights rewatching the films you had made me love so much, building my home with you, chasing our curly-haired children in a grassy back garden; all these dreams were truly impossible now. You were now committed to the earth, the same way I was ―and always will be― committed to you.

**_And I can’t forgive myself  
No I can’t forgive myself_ **

When the funeral ended, people began to leave, one by one, until all who were left were our families: your brother and your mother, my sisters and my mother, and I. I knelt before the freshly laden earth and wept. On the day you were buried, my heart was buried with you as well.

What’s more painful, Sophie: to find, or to lose? It’s been a year since you were laid at rest in the cold, dark earth, yet even until now, I can’t stop yearning for you.

I returned to Bearsden for your death anniversary. Flowers in hand as I walked down the road by old Saint Augustine’s, I can’t help but ask myself: did I lose you, or did I find you? I don’t know the answer, and I probably never would. But our memories together play like a movie in my mind to which I knew every line. With each memory that plays on, I had found love, lost. You, lost.

I can never forgive myself for not seizing the courage to tell you that I love you, Sophie. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how everything would have been so different if only I had told you that I love you.

But this is how I like to imagine it, your answer. In your wisdom, with that kind look in your eyes, you’d tell me to not be so harsh on myself, because you could never bring yourself to be that cruel to me. You’d want me to hold my head up high, to not let sorrow become me, to guard hope with my own life and continue living. You’d say that it’s something that we don’t really have a say in. That at the end of the day, we never lose; we always find.

I'll always find, Sophie. In everything I'll ever do, I will always find you. I close my eyes and smile softly, the sunshine on my back seemingly telling me everything you had wanted to teach me when you lived. You had never left me, Sophie; I had never lost you. Your love stayed with me throughout the years. And just as it has lived in me all these years, it will continue living on as I continue to find.

Just as all roads lead to Rome, all love leads to you, Sophie. I lay my flowers at the foot of your tombstone and smile a soft smile. There was no need to say farewell to you, my love; wherever I may roam, I will always come back to you. In everything that I do, you will be there with me, smiling as you continue to shed light in the depths of my soul. I will never be without you because you, beloved, have made me into who I am through your love, your selflessness, your gentle brilliance. My best friend, the love of my life, now the angel who entrusts me to this wild world. Whenever I face this brave new world, I will always see you.

I'll live my life celebrating you, Sophie.

I'll live my life always loving you.

**_Sophie._ **


End file.
